If you are an entrepreneur or a venture capitalist it is very likely to hear of the term, “incubation”. Basically the term, “incubation” is used to describe a business model in which a fledgling company is brought under the protection of a bigger benevolent organization. The incubator in all sense of the terms provides assistance and protection to the fledgling company. The support is provided till the time the young company gets ready with all its products and services and grows enough to survive on its own.
“Incubation” in the recent times is also used in case of marketing the new products and services. In this case the time that is taken by the customers to react on the marketing efforts of the company is also known as incubation. There are many organizations which do not consider the importance of incubation and also how it can have effect on the burn rate as the products and the services are rolled out in the market.
Mostly the problem takes place when business personnel do not consider incubation period. In simple words it can be said that the period of incubation is basically the time period of the marketing message reaching the potential customers and the time required for the customers to take any kind of action. If you look back carefully you are in a position to understand that hardly had you taken a very prompt decision as far as the purchase of particular goods and services are concerned.
On the other hand it is very likely that the prospective customers conduct adequate research on the various goods and services which are on offer. As a business person you ought to remember that every product or service has an incubation period. In case of lower priced consumer goods the incubation period is shorter while in case of the costly goods the incubation period is quite higher. Surveys have found out that before making decision about an important purchase the time taken is around six months to one year. Thus the business personnel should give enough incubation periods for the actual sale to take place. |
